


lineage

by albion



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Boyfriends who are not in good states of being, Break Up, Discussions of choice, M/M, Pre-Recall, Regret, Selfishness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-18 05:31:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8150822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/albion/pseuds/albion
Summary: They’re sitting on the rocks, idly watching the flight of birds over the darkening horizon, when Genji says it.“I’m leaving Overwatch.”





	

They’re sitting on the rocks, idly watching the flight of birds over the darkening horizon, when Genji says it.

“I’m leaving Overwatch.”

Jesse blinks, lifts his head from where he’s been resting it between his drawn-up knees. He glances at Genji, sitting cross legged, staring out over the sea. His visor is on, face closed off against the evening breeze and from his partner’s inquiring stare. Faceless and readless.

Genji’s become a lot more like that nowadays, ever since he had come back from Japan. Jesse’s not stupid. He’d seen the reports on Reyes’ desk. Sent to annihilate your own clan. Even he hadn’t been tasked with something of that calibre.

(If they had asked him to murder his old gang mates, would he have been able to do it? Jesse isn’t sure.

Genji’s a much stronger man than he is.)

“You’re leaving?” Jesse asks. He sits up straighter. “Just… leaving?”

“Yes.” That one word answer. Simple.

“...why?”

“I cannot remain here,” Genji says simply. “Not like this. I…” he trails off, begins flicking lines of shuriken in and out from the holsters embedded in his arm. One of his restless ticks.

Jesse swallows. When Genji gets like this, he can sometimes be unpredictable. He’s been more unpredictable as of late. Jesse bears the bruises and cuts down his arms and legs as proof; sparring wounds.

“Do you think they’d let you go?” He asks after a long moment, when it becomes clear Genji has no intention of finishing his half-formed thought.

“I do not plan to ask them.”

Jesse raises one eyebrow. “You don’t think they’d go lookin’ for you? You don’t think you should tell them ‘fore you skip out of town?”

“I do not plan to ask them because I plan to tell them. Even if they tell me no, I will go. They cannot stop me.”

“Oh.”

And there’s the ticket really. What Jesse’s forgotten. Overwatch agents are allowed to retire.

Jesse’s retirement comes with a mission report and an unmarked grave, if he’s lucky.

Most Blackwatch agents aren’t.

“You should leave as well.”

Jesse blinks in surprise, the words failing to register in his mind at first. Genji has to be joking.

“You’re joking,” Jesse says. “You know I can’t.”

“Why not?” Genji asks. He does not turn around; remains staring out over the ocean. The sun is a melting disk of dark burnished copper, slowly being swallowed up by the sea. Jesse can hear the sounds of gulls on the air.

“I’m not like you. I can’t just leave. I owe them, and I’ve still got a debt to pay.”

Genji makes a small humming noise. “You told me once that they offered you a choice. Overwatch or jail.”

“Yeah, they did. Then I found out later it wasn’t Overwatch at all, but Blackwatch.”

“What kind of choice is that?”

“It’s a whole lot better than maximum security lock-up, that’s for sure.” Jesse scowls. Genji doesn’t work with Reyes. He doesn’t understand.

“With a different jailer.”

Jesse clamps his mouth shut.

“Is Reyes your jailer?” Genji asks, prodding at the wound.

Jesse considers. “Maybe once he was. Now… no, he’s not.”

Genji hums again. “They offered me a choice,” he begins. “They offered to rebuild my body in return for helping them to destroy the Shimada.”

“That’s not a choice at all, Genji. What if you had refused?”

“What if _you_ had?”

They both consider the impasse between them.

“So,” Jesse says. “You’re leaving.”

“Yes.”

Jesse gets to his feet, brushes off the specks of invisible dust. “When?”

“Soon.”

Now Jesse gets irritated. “You don’t think I don’t deserve a proper date for when you just up and leave?”

Genji turns to face him, the colours of his visor spiking. Jesse knows underneath his visor, he’s angry. Genji has been so angry recently.

“I do not owe you anything,” he snarls.

Jesse evens him with a glare. “Yeah, you don’t owe the guy you’ve been sleeping with an explanation before you break up with him.”

Genji stands up, a quiet click of his legs and the whirr of his internal calibrations. Jesse shifts instinctively into a more defensive pose.

“This is not about you, Jesse. We did not _sleep_ together. We are not dating.”

“Yeah,” Jesse sniffs. “I guess we ain’t.”

He turns and stalks down the pathway back to the base, leaving Genji standing there high up above him. If Genji wants to, he could easily kill him.

Genji doesn’t.

Jesse returns to the HQ, picks up the datapad left out for him. “A new mission, boss?”

Reyes nods. Jesse goes and prepares.

The mission runs like clockwork; routine. He doesn’t think about Genji, but his heart races involuntarily whenever he sees an omnic in the corner of his eye. He hates it. Genji has taken everything from him. Why should he go running after him?

Jesse shoots. His enemies fall. 

Genji can leave whenever he wants. He’s paid his debt. He owes them nothing anymore.

(He owes Jesse _something._ )

The strings of Jesse’s life are tied to Blackwatch, and to Reyes, and no scissor could cut them save death.

 

* * *

 

When he returns, Genji has gone, just as he said he would. There’s a sad expression on everyone’s faces. Jesse walks past them and into Angela’s office. He’d gotten badly scraped up on his mission, had faltered with his Deadeye.

She takes a look at the wound, glances up at him. “You are not usually this careless.”

“I’ve always been careless,” Jesse replies. “In everything.”

Angela doesn’t say anything as she works, dabbing his side with biotic fluid and wrapping up the wound. When she’s done, she asks if he needs any work done on his prosthetic.

Jesse stares at her. “Genji’s left Overwatch.”

Angela merely stares back. “Yes, I know.”

“You didn’t try and stop him?”

She gives him a withering look. “Do you think I am in any position to tell him where he can or cannot go? Besides, he did not tell anyone he was leaving. He just… left. One morning, he didn’t check-in over his comm. He was gone. It is only later we received the message not to follow him. He did not leave coordinates of where he was going.”

(He did not tell anyone he was leaving. Save Jesse. What does that mean?)

“You rebuilt his body. You saved his life.”

“I did,” she says. “And I would do so again, if need be.”

“You didn’t give him a choice.”

“That was not my call to make,” she says coldly, voice taking on an undercurrent of steel. “And that is also none of your business either.”

Jesse leaves the medbay. Angela cannot help him.

What is a choice, really, when the options are between life and no life at all?

Who would willingly choose death?

Genji didn’t leave him a note of goodbye. He had no possessions save for his weaponry, and that is all gone with him. Jesse sits down on Genji’s old bed, checks and rechecks his gun, loads and reloads the clip.

Genji had told him that he should leave as well. He didn’t ask Jesse to come with him.

And that, maybe that’s the ticket after all.

 

* * *

 

He should have left earlier. 

Now he’s staring down the barrel of his commander’s own twin shotguns, and he wishes he had.

“What’s to stop me leaving?” Jesse asks. “I don’t owe you this. None of this was part of our deal.”

“You think you can pull what the Shimada kid pulled?” Reyes asks. He laughs, low and bitter. “You don’t get that kind of choice.”

“Don’t I?” Jesse asks. He reaches for his gun. 

 

“Draw.”

**Author's Note:**

> i can't see pre-recall mcgenji being anything but pretty painful. neither of these boys are in a good state of being. neither of them were given a choice.
> 
> sometimes you have to be selfish to be kind.


End file.
